I am officially putting Chloe under a protective bubble/shield until Idyll pets have all recovered..... pls advise when the quarantine can safely be lifted. The chill mornings are playing havoc w/ my blooming clematis -- poor Niobe that is littered w/ blooms & buds was seriously drooping -- since it's a 5 yr old I doubt it's "wilt" but suffering from the cold, cold mornings we've had - bizarre for May here. I am taking comfort in seeing Spanish Bluebells blooming in 2 areas of the back garden though -- I probably planted those bulbs 3 or more years ago and this is the first time flowering! I'd truly given them up & figured they were a flop - they're just a tiny patch but so pretty! (probably 8 out of 50 original bulbs, but ya gotta love 'em, LOL). Speaking of oriental lilies, I have really been startled as well here that my clumps are looking incredibly huge, healthy & have increased a lot since last year -- and this is for ones I planted in June I think - go figure. So apparently somethings are liking the weather, just not the ones I was expecting. Deanne, I remember your stunning photos w/ the Casablancas; you definitely need to re-install. They're smashing - to say nothing of sooo wonderful for our noses. Brenda, whenever I am flagging and think I've had a hard day, I am going to think of you -- the physical labor & long hours you put in & then come home to deal w/ stinky dogs & dinner make you into the superwoman category in my book! Chelone -- I had to dig out 4 yr old clumps of Eupatorium a few years ago & I can't imagine what your older ones were like -- it was like digging thru bedrock -- I cussed and fussed -- and it kept coming back; eventually I had to put plastic over it for several months (after round-up!) to get rid of it -- so take heart, you could just take one little piece & it will survive, trust me. I've had luck w/ potting pieces of baptisia too (altho it was probably not too old a plant)so it may be yours will bloom after a little sulk. I love that plant too -- talk about low maintenance for big bang! Im pretty enamoured of the B. Purple Smoke I bought last month too -- they come in such lovely colors these days w/ all the hybridization going on. I sure hope all others are finally really on the mend -- pets and people alike -- I think it sounds like everyone has had more than their fair share of this stuff! And donations to car shops and vets has been more than adequate. I've got a staff meeting this a.m. -- more changes and announcements -- we have a new HR head (it's somewhat of a revolving door in this firm) and they always come in and want to "make their mark" and starting changing and re-inventing the wheel -- especially the ones who have only a corporate background & have never worked in a law firm -- bad decision usually -- but Im trying to be philosophical & know that whatever new craziness they're announcing, it's sure to be a repeat or something that will cycle out eventually! However, the latest rumor seems to be the placement of "hall monitors" on each floor to monitor "work flow", can you imagine -- it sounds like floor nazis to me. Like we're kids in elementary school instead of highly paid, experienced professionals! While I dont personally expect to be a recipient of this micro-managing, I just philosophically feel strongly opposed to such ideas. Well, guess I'll know for sure in an hour (& will try to keep my trap shut about whatever they announce, LOL)... Cindy

~ Container Count / Zone Wars ~ Zone Wars Summary: Zone 3 . . . . . . . . . . . 0 Zone 4 . . . . . . . . . 322 Zone 5 . . . . . . . . 1,524 Zone 6 . . . . . . . . 1,020 Zone 7 . . . . . . . . 1,090 Zone 8 . . . . . . . . . 429 Zone 9 . . . . . . . . . 116 Total Containers: 4,501 Good morning, winter sowing guys! Welcome to this year's count, Bookjunky, Lissatink, and Smarmyclothes! Lissatink, yes Nemo was a doozy, but about half of our 24" has melted already, although my containers are still buried. Barbe, sorry I missed a few containers, but yes once you sow over a hundred you are a member of the winter-sowing "Mile High Club" (haha). Congrats! Click the Container Count / Zone Wars Spreadsheet to see the container count in detail. ~ Happy US President's Day Everybody ~ "Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity"...Thomas Jefferson "I must be farmer John ... and nothing more (I hope nothing less) for the rest of my life."...John Adams âÂÂMy heart found its home long ago in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth.âÂÂ...Lady Bird Johnson This post was edited by terrene on Tue, Feb 19, 13 at 10:48

I don’t remember keypunch cards with utility bills! The first time I, personally, had anything to do with them was when I went along with my husband-at-the-time to keypunch his cards for him when he was taking programming—Fortran—in school. Then, when I was registering for some classes myself (early 70s!), at registration you went around to the different “tables” and picked up a “card” for whatever class you were registering for—and turned them in—with your money!—when you were done! My, my, my! How times change! But I had NO idea they went back to the 1800s! Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what the “original” “punch” cards looked like! Regarding the Western Expansion—and allotments! The Nez Perce were one of the first tribes forced into allotments. Allotments—The Dawes Act of 1887—was the last really huge land-grab by the U. S. government. Alice Fletcher, who was made an Indian Agent and sent to the Nimi'ipuu [Nez Perce] reservation to enforce allotments said this of the Act when the Nez Perce tried to resist having their lands allotted: “The work must be done for them whether they approve or not.” The Dawes Act was one more attempt to “civilize” the American Indians, and while it was being debated, Congressman Henry Dawes, author of the act, once expressed his faith in the civilizing power of private property with the claim that to be civilized was to "wear civilized clothes...cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey [and] own property." During allotments more than 70 percent of the Nez Perce Reservation land, as it had been defined by the Treaty of 1863, passed from tribal control, reducing the total acreage of the reservation from 756,960 acres to 175,026 acres by 1895. Speaking of ALL the tribes: Between the passage of the Dawes Act in 1887 and its repeal under the New Deal in 1934, allotment continually deprived Indians of many of their remaining lands. The outright sale of "surplus" lands—parts of reservations left over after allotments had been assigned—and the subsequent sale of allotted lands themselves, shrunk the Indian estate from about 150 million acres before the Dawes Act to 104 million acres by 1890, to 77 million by 1900, and to 48 million by 1934. By the time of its repeal, according to one study, two-thirds of the Indian population was "either completely landless or did not own enough land to make a subsistence living." [Much of the land allotted to individual Indians was the most barren land, without water, that no white people wanted, and after the allotments, many Indians, unable to survive on “their” land, were forced to sell it to buy food in order to keep from starving—for a time at least. Ultimately, they wound up with nothing—no land OR food!] From a website: The numbers of acres lost to allotment, how much money changed hands in the process, and the means by which Natives became citizen-owners of lands on which their ancestors had lived for centuries are vexed and dismal topics. These abuses happened because the federal government approved a law designed to extinguish entire cultures. Under the alibi of enlightened and charitable reeducation, the Dawes Act stipulated procedures for merging individualized Native subjects into the American body politic and erasing their histories while documenting the entire process in state-sponsored institutions of memory. [Most of the Tribal Peoples of North America trace their ancestries back for thousands of years, not hundreds of years, and archaeological records support this!] In resisting being forced onto the newly created Nez Perce reservation in 1876, Hinmatóowyalahtqit (Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt)—Chief Joseph—made this statement: Perhaps you think the Creator sent you here to dispose of us as you see fit. If I thought you were sent by the Creator, I might be induced to think you had a right to dispose of me. Do not misunderstand me, but understand fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose. The one who has a right to dispose of it is the one who has created it. I claim a right to live on my land and accord you the privilege to return to yours. Digit, since “your territory” is up in Nez Perce Country, and you’ve mentioned them around here a couple other times, If you’re interested, I could email you links to a couple video documentaries about them—their “run for freedom” in 1877. Let me know if you’d be interested. (And if you found any good historical newspapers with “Nez Perce news,” I’d be interested in links to them!) Skybird

Yeah, hes got some cool looking stuff on his cactus website, but it seems every time I look he's sold out! One day things might line up for me haha. Heres another good picture (these are all from the Library of Congress website) This is the South Gate (which is not a public gate). If you take Havana all the way north to 56th, it dead ends right into where this gate house once stood. Here it is today: These pictures aren't nearly as eerie as some of ones some people at work have from when they first arrived there in the 90's and started the clean up. If you've ever seen pictures of Chernobyl, you would be hard pressed to distinguish one from the other. On Monday, May 9th 2016 the President signed the legislation making the bison our national mammal (correction from above, the bald eagle is and has been, our national animal). I think the National Bison Herd in Dixon, Montana ( which was started in 1908 and is manged by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) is the parent stock for many/most (all?) of the bison on public lands and by Indian Tribes (both the F&WS and Bureau of Indian Affairs are headed by the Department of the Interior). The one at Chief Hosa I believe is privately owned but I am pretty sure that's where the ones at Custer SP are from and the small herd they recently introduced up on some Larimer County Open Space north of Ft. Collins. Ft. Niobrara NWR in northern Nebraska also has a bison herd, but I think most bison in the United States are held on private ranches. In addition to the National Bison Herd, I also believe different agencies/sites/private parties do share between each other as well, if the herd gets too large for the area they have for example. "Perhaps a path forward for future generations has been found." Today it seems the "creative" solution for transforming the land Steve, is ripping it out with a bulldozer, covering the scar with cement and planting a building on it. One of the biggest fears in the "conservation world" is that, as more generations are raised in cities, their connection to the land is lost and the value placed on conservation shrinks. Eventually, this country will be led by an entire group of people who's entire "growing up" experience was behind screen. By the time people of my son's generation are old enough to vote and hold office, I wonder, how much of their tax dollars are they going to be willing to spend on preserving and conserving the land? When few, if any of the people have ever spent any time in the great outdoors, the value of those great outdoors decreases exponentially. Aldo Leopold lamented that he was glad that he would "never be young without wild country to be young in." The wilderness has been virtually, if not literally, completely conquered, what is the next phase...I shudder to think.